Felicity – You Take Me to Dinner but You’ll Never Feed My Soul

By starrymag | August 5, 2024

By: Karen Steinberg

 

 

Q) How would you describe your sound?

A) It’s alt-pop/rock fusion with big vocals and bombastic live instruments and synths. We wanted the tracks to really translate in the live show.

 

Q) Who are some of your musical influences? 

A) I was raised on a varied diet. My dad would play a lot of Queen, Led Zeppelin and Amy Winehouse while mum played exclusively Celine Dion and Tracy Chapman. While all wildly different as artists they all had one thing in common – a phenomenal, one of a kind vocal… And something worth singing about. Being exposed to artists like these made me branch out and find my own taste like Adele, Alanis Morissette, Regina Spektor, Fiona Apple… The list goes on. [laughs]

 

Q) What are some themes you explore on your debut EP You Take Me to Dinner but You’ll Never Feed My Soul?

A) As it’s my first EP there’s definitely a sense of coming of age. The love songs from my first relationships and how naive I am/ was, then going to “There’s Been A Lot Going On,” which explores existential dread and balancing your own well-being without being overly selfish. As a whole, it explores the plight of young adulthood as a woman in my twenties.

 

Q) The title is intriguing. Please tell us the story behind it. 

A) Thank you! It’s the first lyric in the bridge from “I Prefer You in My Head” (the first single off of the EP) and it’s one of my favorites I’ve ever written. The meaning encompasses the feeling of going numb due to lack of inspiration – whether that be in a relationship or someone I’m working/ creating with. Before I started writing this record, I was beat down and nothing/no one lit my fire, if anything life was stomping the embers out of me. I had to write about those experiences with people I loved and trusted again to truly therapize and process the last few years. From that the EP was born.

 

Q) Where did the inspiration for your recent song “I Prefer You in My Head” come from?

A) It’s actually the only song on the project that is not about me. I wrote it with one of my best friends who at the time was going through a really hard breakup and she came into the studio with such deep emotion, it was so true and raw. She laid face down on the floor and said, “I don’t know, Man. I just prefer him in my head”. The song wrote us – not the other way around.

 

Q) What do you think it is about the song that fans connect to?

A) We’ve all been there. You like someone and the feeling percolates faster than the logic does, faster than reality is actually unfolding and before you know it you’ve got two versions of this person you think you love – the real one and the one you’ve made up in your head and now it’s on you to sink back to reality. Not a fun feeling but not an unusual one either.

 

Q) How does the video for the track play into the message behind it?

A) I wanted it to capture that feeling of when you’re getting ready for a night out with the person you’re dating, and you put on an outfit that makes you feel amazing, and you do all your hair and makeup just to have the night ruined in a fight. You spend all day fantasizing about this night just to have it spoiled. You preferred it in your head. The whole video begins after the said night out, my feet hurt, my make-ups ruined and god knows what else is.

 

Q) What is your songwriting process? Do you need music before you can create lyrics?

A) Well, I usually have to be going through something with enough gravity to pull me down and make me think about a song idea. My first thought when anything major in my life happens isn’t, “What’re we gonna do,” for better or worse. It’s, “What’re we gonna write?” From there I usually take whatever concept or lyric I have into the studio and my producer, Austin Luther, perfectly pries it out of my brain.

 

Q) How much of a hand do you have in the production of your music?

A) Austin Luther deserves all the credit on this one, while I sit with him and iron out the kinks and come up with parts and ideas it’s his hands lol. He played pretty much everything on the whole record, and we spent hours just honing, trial and error-ing and listening to stuff that inspired us.

 

Q) What song(s) on the EP hold a special significance to you and what makes it so dear to your heart?

A) “There’s Been a Lot Going On” was written because it needed to be, not because I wanted to. I was in a bad place at the time – emotionally, musically, mentally, financially – it was 360 degrees not a good time being me. LMAO! I was working this bar job one night and was driving home around 3am (at the time I had another bar job in addition to that one and an office job just to pay my bills and finish my record. I was drowning in my life, in what I’d plated up for myself, but anywayyy…). I turned on the radio and the news was on and it was all horrific and everything combined became too much. A saying my Mum has always kept in my ear during times like that night is “there’s been a lot going on” and it’s her lovely way of saying “just because things are going wrong doesn’t mean it’s your fault. How were you to know you were over filling your plate when you were that hungry?” Anyway, I still listen to it when I’m going through a lot to remind me it’s all good.

 

Q) What songs off You Take Me To Dinner… are you looking forward to performing live?

A) Well, all of them. Shows are my favorite thing in the world but “So Called Rich Man” is electric, we’ve added a couple moments too that make it all the more fun with the audience – cannot wait!!

 

Q) What do you hope listeners take away from listening to the EP as a whole – either as a message or an emotion?

A) Just that it’s all going to be okay and it’s normal to be feeling the things you’re feeling. You can be angry, and confused, and overwhelmed, and ecstatic, and in love, and confused and grow from that. Every experience is a contributor to the definition of who you are, good or bad, and you gotta just roll with it.

 

Q) You are out on tour now. Where are some of your favorite places to perform and what makes those locations so significant to you?

A) New York City will always have my heart. I lived fifteen minutes from Time Square as an 18-year-old until I was twenty-two years old so it was good to be back on familiar ground – plus the crowd was on fire, I couldn’t believe it!!

 

Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?

A) Hozier. I would very much like a tour of that man’s brain, it’s a museum!

 

Q) What artist/musician are you currently listening to and why do you dig them? 

A) I’ve been listening to a lot of Holly Humberstone and Julia Jacklin when I drive, just such damn good lyrics and production from both of them. If you ever need help crying “Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You” by Julia Jacklin is the answer, tragic and perfect.

I also recently fell down a familiar rabbit hole from my New York days and have been listening to A LOT of Jon Bellion – his mind is 1 of 1.

 

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?

A) Just really a massive thank you, for people to take time out of their day to listen to my song or take money they’ve earned and buy a ticket to a show is still and I hope will always be completely surreal to me. Mostly that – oh and there’s so much more music coming so soon <3